Distracted driving is an activity that can divert a person's attention away from the primary task of driving. There are many types of distractions that can endanger a driver, their passengers, other drivers and bystanders. The most pervasive distraction is text messaging because it requires visual, manual, and cognitive attention from the driver. The following data from the web site Distraction.Gov highlights the importance of the invention to identify, monitor, and change phone usage behavior while driving:                10% of all drivers under the age of 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the crash. This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted.        At any given daylight moment across America, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving, a number that has held steady since 2010. (NOPUS) Drivers in their 20s make up 27 percent of the distracted drivers in fatal crashes. (NHTSA)        Engaging in visual-manual subtasks (such as reaching for a phone, dialing and texting) associated with the use of hand-held phones and other portable devices increased the risk of getting into a crash by three times. (VTTI)        Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55 mph, that's enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded. (2009, VTTI)        A quarter of teens respond to a text message once or more every time they drive. 20 percent of teens and 10 percent of parents admit that they have extended, multi-message text conversations while driving. (UMTRI)        
Handheld mobile phones, or cell phones for short, were introduced in the 1970's and their popularity and use with consumers grew through the 1980's and 90's. Whereas their original purpose was for voice communications, text messaging and photography were eventually added as capabilities to these devices, further increasing their popularity with consumers. Cellular radio networks advanced from analog to digital, and the speed and capability of the digital networks improved as did the geographical coverage across the United States and many other nations throughout the 1990's and into the twenty-first century. Meanwhile, the capability of mobile phones continued to improve along with the related advancements in microelectronics, computers, cameras, and data storage. Accordingly, the most popular style of cell phone is now the “smart phone”, a handheld mobile phone that generally includes a cellular phone capable of providing voice communications as well as a color graphical screen with touchscreen capability for user input, one or more cameras that may be capable of taking still and video photography, a computer processor, flash memory for data storage, a GPS receiver, and the necessary internal antennas for receiving and/or transmitting on potentially several different bands. Therefore, the smart phone may have the ability to send and receive basic or multimedia text messages and email messages, record and play audio and video, receive GPS signals and provide navigation assistance, and process a virtually unlimited number of software applications (“apps” for short) for the smart phone user.
The broader category of mobile electronic devices generally includes cell phones, smart phones, and tablet computers. Many of the software applications (apps) that are developed for smart phones may also be used on tablet computers, which are available in a variety of sizes ranging from palm-sized to nearly the size of a laptop computer, and tablet computers may have the ability to communicate over a cellular data network, thereby enabling their use for operating software applications on roadways and highways much in the same manner as smart phones. Accordingly, all mobile electronic devices, including those described above, have the potential of being able to distract a driver who is using it, while also being able to operate software applications that detect and monitor the physical environment of the device as well as the device operator's interaction with that device.
In an effort to monitor and/or prevent the operation of a mobile device by the driver of a vehicle, several applications have been developed which utilize a variety of possible approaches. One approach has been to interface a mobile phone with electronics that are installed in a vehicle, thereby utilizing indications from the vehicle that it is being driven. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,294,603 B2 (Fischer) utilizes the position of the vehicle's gearshift lever and information from the vehicle's engine control unit to detect is the vehicle is being driven, thereby inhibiting some of the functionality of the mobile phone that it interfaces to. Another popular approach utilizes the GPS receiver on the mobile phone to detect the speed of the device, thereby giving an indication it is in a moving vehicle. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,270,933 B2 (Reiemer) inhibits selected functionality on the mobile phone if the GPS indication of speed exceeds a certain threshold value. An obvious disadvantage of this approach is that all mobile phones within a moving vehicle, and not only that of the driver, would be affected by this system. An improvement on this design is to use the indication of vehicle speed and to create a zone of device usage exclusion only around the driver. For example, U.S. Application 2012-0231773 A1 (Lipovski) utilizes a method of utilizing an ultrasonic signal to determine if the cellphone is in a zone in a moving vehicle, with such a zone being the space around the driver, and preventing drivers from texting when the vehicle is in motion.
Other approaches have been aimed at the use of mobile phones by minors, utilizing a third-party control system that a parent or other adult operates to enable or disable features on the mobile phone. For example, U.S. Application 2015-0195705 A1 (Mullins) requires a secondary computer or mobile device that is accessed by a parent who may disable some or all of the functionality of a minor's mobile phone based on time of day or the speed of the device. Approaches utilizing a third-party control system similar to this are often referred to as “nanny controls” because they are generally intended for mobile devices that are used by minors, or by employees when either a mobile device or a vehicle, or both, are provided by an employer. However, this approach lacks the ability to determine if a mobile device is being used by a person who is driving a vehicle.
A more sophisticated approach would be to utilize the computer on the mobile device to implement a software application on the device that monitors the user's input to the device to determine if the device is being operated by vehicle driver. For example, U.S. Application 2015-0148019 A1 (Michaelis) utilizes two different methods: one requires that the user of a device utilize two hands for device input if the speed of the device is above a certain threshold, and the other analyzes the cadence of keypad or touch screen input by the operator to determine if the typing input is “bursty” as indicated by the entry of a group of characters, followed by a pause, before the entry of additional groups of characters, while also evaluating whether the device is moving at greater than a certain threshold speed. While this approach may be better at detecting whether a mobile device is being used by the driver of a moving vehicle than other approaches, it lacks the ability to analyze the entire cadence of the user's keypad or touch screen input including error rate and typing corrections, and it also lacks the ability to utilize all of the internal and external environmental sensors on the mobile device to discern if it is being used by the driver of a vehicle.